Our Father

by Marilyn French

  Her face was wet again, and she turned on her side and rubbed her cheek on the pillowcase. She closed her eyes.

  Try to think of one kind thing they did, either of them, either one. Once.

  She searched her memory.

  He put me on a horse once. Helped me up, told me how to sit, hold the reins. Archangel, the horse was called. Told McCutcheon—that was his name!—to hold the reins, walk me in a circle. Watched. Said “Good, Elizabeth.” Smiled. I thought he smiled because the trainer was there, but maybe not. Maybe not.

  Bought me a book once. Came back from a trip, handed me this book in a paper bag, said he’d thought I might like it. I was nine. Arabian Nights. Funny. Was he already planning …

  Don’t count that one.

  She gave up her bridge club to save money to send me to Catholic school, knowing that would force him to pay for private school. And she loved her bridge club. Never rejoined, though. Gambling with those rich women too expensive for her, really, even if she is a super player. She wanted me educated well. Sacrificed for it. Sent me a little allowance the whole time I was in England. Probably ate canned soup to do it.

  I remember her holding me, once, when I was little. Once? Must have held me when I was a baby, mustn’t she? With love?

  There were good things. I just don’t tend to hold on to them, I clutch the others, harbor hate.

  I condemn you to die of your own hatred. …

  I had Clare. All in all, Clare was a good thing.

  I had my career. Have my career.

  Them. I have them now, don’t I.

  My sisters.

  She slept.

  Mary went through her entire evening regimen despite the late hour, weeping through her shower, weeping as she creamed her face so that the tears cut through the cream, making her laugh and finally give up. She went straight to her chaise and opened her small cloisonné box of marijuana (should have known Christine would have a supplier, she always had the best junk at Peabrain’s) and rolled a joint. She leaned back, inhaled deeply, stared out at darkness against darkness.

  A sob burst out of her. She let herself retch sobs for a few moments, then stopped, blew her nose, wiped her face. She got up, dropped the wet handkerchief on the dresser top, and found a clean one in a drawer. She stuck it in her pocket and returned to her chaise. She took another toke, but the sobs returned and she bent her head over in her hands, laying the cigarette in an ashtray.

  Oh Daddy.

  He’d come into her bed when she was little and alone and frightened because Mommy was gone and he’d snuggled with her and held her and then he did those other things she didn’t like but still he would lie there with her, holding her, he was so warm, his body was always hot, hot and wet, and when she was shivering he kept her warm, keeping my little Mary warm, he said, and she’d hold on to him and she would feel safe well kind of safe because she never knew when he’d start the other and sometimes he did it but stayed anyway until she fell asleep. …

  Later, of course, it was different. When she was grown. Making a woman of you he said. Fussing over her breasts, they were big even then, her ass, he loved her ass he said, so round and shapely. I was numb. Just lay there like a rag doll, same with Harry and Paul, Alberto excited me a bit at first but really all he liked to do was turn me over and ram into me from behind. Just a rag doll, my whole life, porcelain head, rag body. Except with Don.

  What Daddy taught me.

  Even so, I loved him so much, loved him, loved him. … Can’t stop loving him.

  We killed him tonight, I suppose. Not that he would have lived much longer anyway. In a way, it was a service to him, he probably would have preferred to die than live that way but he never said anything, never even hinted, get me pills. … I wonder if he still has that gun he showed me, I wonder where it is. I wouldn’t have helped him die. Would have said the hell with you, I’m not going to prison for you you bastard you ruined my life you ruined me for life, I wouldn’t do you the favor. …

  Yet I did it after all. Funny.

  The sobs erupted again, deep retching spasms that seemed to come from her stomach, that bent her double in pain, drenched her face. She tried to control them, and they gradually subsided. She used her handkerchief, soaked it, got up, dropped it on the dresser top and reached for a fresh one. Then she gazed at the wet, wrinkled handkerchiefs.

  Really miserable for Teresa to have to pick up a hankie full of my snot isn’t it.

  She collected several wet handkerchiefs from where she had dropped them, carried them into the bathroom, filled the sink basin with hot water and dropped them in. At least that way they won’t be snotty.

  She returned to the chaise and reached for her joint but it was smoked down, not even a roach left. She rolled a fresh one, leaned back, tried to feel luxurious, pampered, cared for, but she couldn’t, she was uncomfortable, the chaise back was not really very comfortable however graceful and lovely it appeared and the cushions wouldn’t stay in place. She sat up straight, peered out.

  That daddy’s been dead for decades. Now Father’s dead. He was old, he had a long full life, he had everything he ever wanted, it’s okay. Why do I crave, what do I … the sobs reached her throat again, but she forced them down.

  If he doesn’t leave me enough money, I’ll just sell the apartment and move in with Lizzie, with what I have left over after the debts are paid I could live a long time if I kept my bills down, I can practice the piano, Lizzie likes it anyway she works all day, and I can write poetry, there are people there to do things with, lunches, museums, it’s perfectly acceptable two sisters our age living together, it makes perfect sense, Alex can even come to visit us, she lives near there, we can have get-togethers, we can find some exquisite jewel of a house in Falls Church like the one Alice Willie lived in years ago, huge garden, huge trees, a little Japanese bridge over a brook. …

  I don’t have to have another husband.

  The thought shocked her into utter stillness. She held the joint stiffly for so long it went out.

  I don’t have to do that again. Ever. I don’t ever have to act as if I think a man is wonderful when I don’t, don’t have to pretend to be stupid, don’t ever have to lie there in the bed. … Unless I meet someone like Don, someone I feel that way about, someone I feel that way about oh if only I would. …

  She stared at the black window.

  The image of her daughter’s face appeared in the darkness.

  My god how I’ve abandoned her. Like my own mother, with less excuse, I’m still alive if you can call it that. …

  Lizzie would never want a kid living with us. And Marie-Laure’s such a slob, expects the maid to pick up her underclothes even. Never washed a dish in her life, doesn’t even help Marguerite when we’re at Marty’s house at holidays, just goes inside and turns on television or picks up a magazine, doesn’t even read books, of course it’s true Marguerite has plenty of help in the kitchen but still.

  Well, neither did you until a month ago.

  Marie-Laure’s pale sulky face looked now in her mother’s imagination like a face of pain, a face of longing, a silent cry. …

  Mary got up and went to the bedside table where the telephone lay and dialed her daughter’s number. After a long time, a sleepy voice answered.

  “Marie-Laure. Dear? Yes, it’s Mama. Mom. Your mother. I know, I’m sorry, I know you must have been sound asleep, but I needed to call you, I needed to talk to you. No, of course I haven’t gotten married again, what put such an idea in your head? You know I’m at Grandpa’s. I wanted to tell you”—Mary’s voice broke—“he died tonight.” She sobbed, covering the mouthpiece of the telephone.

  The young sleepy voice on the other end was silent. After a time, she said, “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Thank you, dear,” Mary said feelingly. “I haven’t called the boys yet, I’ll do that tomorrow. I just wanted to hear your sweet voice.”

  The silence on the line was shocked. “Will you be all right?” the young
voice finally asked falteringly.

  “Oh yes, of course, my sisters are here. I want you to meet them all, you should have come here for Thanksgiving, it was just … well, you know, he was still in the hospital … you’ve never met Alex or Ronnie. Ronnie’s near your age.”

  “Ronnie? Who’s she?”

  “Oh. Well, she’s another sister.”

  “I didn’t know you had another sister.”

  “Neither did I,” Mary lied.

  “REALLY!” The voice grew excited now.

  “I’ll tell you all about it some other time. Go back to sleep now. I just wanted you to know.”

  “Did Grandpa leave you lots of money?”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”

  “IT DOESN’T MATTER???? Haven’t you been …”

  “Yes. Yes. But everything’s different now. I’m different now.”

  “Umm,” the voice agreed.

  “I’m going to come to see you. Soon.”

  The voice was not overwhelmed with joy. “You are?”

  “I am,” Mary said firmly.

  “Well. Okay. I’m sorry about Grandpa.”

  “Thanks, dear.”

  Silence.

  “All right. I’m going to be able to sleep now, darling. Will you be able to go back to sleep?”

  “Sure.”

  “Sleep well, baby.”

  Mary put down the phone, slid into bed, and slept. Like a baby.

  Alex was still wearing the dress she had worn earlier in the evening, a heavy jersey she had bought because she had felt it appropriate to the role of a judge. Now she saw it as the dress in which she had killed her father. She was pacing in her bedroom, arms akimbo, head bowed, trying to reach a place where her heart could rest. Talking to it, the spirit, the Shechinah dwelling within her, angry, tearful.

  Avenging angel is that what you wanted of me put me here for was that it? What kind of job is that to give a person, without giving her a choice, it is not ever what I wanted to be, wouldn’t have been it if I’d known. …

  She was not speaking aloud but occasionally sounds emerged from her mouth, angry mutterings, gasps, a sob, a hiss. After half an hour, she suddenly stopped, almost ripped the dress off her body, threw it on the floor, threw all her clothes on the floor as she stripped and headed for the shower. She turned the water on as hot as she could bear, stood there soaping herself over and over for as long as she could stand it. Then she rubbed her body with a rough towel hard. She was red from face to toes when she stopped, exhausted, looked at her watch.

  Shit I took a shower with my watch on. It read four-fifteen.

  It’s not waterproof but it’s still working. Is that a sign?

  Wearily, she walked back to her room, picking up clothes as she went, tossing them onto a chair. She pulled down the spread and climbed into bed naked, something she had never done before.

  It had to be me because I was only a baby when he. … So he poisoned my entire life, everything touched by that forgotten event. So they reserved me, always they intended me to be an instrument, half alive, without memory, an instrument to be switched on and used when the moment came. Why I always felt I hadn’t lived. I don’t feel that now.

  Is being alive having this terrible guilt? I killed my father. I will never be, can never be, clean of this crime.

  Is this what you are, you things, you gods, you Shechinah or whatever else they call you? How dare you, how dare you! Using people to punish other people?

  That can’t be.

  Nature works harmoniously within chaos, works to enable natural processes to survive, works interactively. It is not, cannot be, personally punitive. That’s a human imposition on it. Disaster and death are accidents, they have nothing to do with justice, a human concept, yesterday I could have been a woman living in Bhopal, a good woman, a woman of virtue, a good man, a child, and still be dead or dying. …

  I was only the accidental cause of Father’s death.

  Why couldn’t he see that all he had to do was reach out his arm to us, scrawl SORRY on his pad, and all of us, all of us, well, maybe not Ronnie, but Elizabeth and Mary and I … oh, we would have thrown ourselves on him, hugged him, loved him, we all loved him, didn’t he know that, couldn’t he feel that, we loved him and that had nothing to do with justice either, it is the work of nature that the infant loves the parent. …

  So he killed himself, he made my verdict come true, the verdict, the words put in my mouth by the Shechinah. The Shechinah worked through me, I am not responsible, I was her instrument, I was a mere working of nature, a hurricane, a spontaneous forest fire, a flash flood, a sunset, a sunrise, a blade of grass that pierces through concrete and the concrete was Father and he cracked. She endowed me finally with my true nature, made me alive, I’m alive now, now I can be who I am, now I am Alexandra. I am a blade of grass. I grow in the world and crack concrete.

  Dead dead dead forever never always always for the rest of my life illegitimate bastard by-blow misbegotten baseborn wrong side of the blanket bar sinister but surely only men had those only men had shields come home with it or upon it nice message but you need a shield to have a bar sinister women never have them no defenses not even underpants. And in his eyes a spic nigger wog spade jigaboo coon wetback mulatto half-breed there must be others I probably even know them can’t think of them now. How can I respect myself, find any way to stand erect without repudiating half myself, how can I do that, can I cut off my arm, my leg, which one?

  Fuck off, Ronnie. You’ve been repudiating his half all your life.

  She lay fully dressed on her made-up bed, stiff as a corpse, hands folded piously on her stomach, staring at the ceiling. Suddenly aware of her posture, she smiled.

  Hope my coffin is more comfortable than this mattress.

  What a fool he was. Couldn’t he see they were dying to forgive him? At least Alex was, and probably Mary too. Killed himself rather than take their love, offer them love, what a person, what makes a person like that?

  Terrible, incredible, overwhelming fear.

  Jesus H. Christ, one of the richest families in America, one of the most powerful men in the country, you mean he lived in fear?

  Fear he didn’t deserve it. Fear he’d lose it.

  You mean it’s true, the poor are happier than the rich? Ronnie laughed out loud, a hard hollow laugh, then stopped suddenly.

  Stupid ass.

  So it’s over. I’m free of him.

  You’ve been free of him for years.

  I’ll never be free of him. What would I have done if he’d reached out his arm and included me? Huh?

  No. Couldn’t.

  No.

  Suppose he’d said he was sorry?

  I could have walked toward him. I could have looked at his face without hate.

  Taken his hand?

  No.

  If he’d held it out to you? Specifically to you?

  She burst into tears. She let herself weep, no one could hear, wept for a long time into the pillow, heaved, sobbed, then rested, drawing her breath in long deep pulls. Then she sat up and rummaged in her shirt pocket, found a rumpled pack of cigarettes, a few left, lighted one. Have to stop this. Will. As soon as I leave here. She inhaled deeply and got up off the bed, walked into the kitchen, the hall, the playroom, looked out the back windows into the dark garden.

  Remember the beautiful things. Once the funeral is over, you’ll probably never enter this house again. Or any house like it. Not from the front door, anyway. Have to do something now. Find a job. Haven’t made much headway in the thesis, either. A little. Another five six months’ work. At least.

  Ah, so what. So you don’t finish. So what? What difference does it make if you have letters after your name? Will that change anything?

  A little, maybe.

  Is that what you need to be a person? Letters after your name?

  Legitimate, illegitimate, white, black, brown, tan, red, yellow, all that stuff, female, male, all that stuff: why do
you let it matter so much.

  Because it does.

  To them. To them.

  And to me.

  To you?

  She smoked the cigarette down and stubbed it out in an ashtray. She wandered back to her bedroom and began to take off her clothes. She opened her window. She got into bed naked, it was warm tonight, warm for December, maybe they’d forgotten to turn down the hate turn down the heat I mean should I go check the thermostat, the hell with it I’m so tired, tired. She crawled into the lumpy bed and lay there.

  I’m not a saint for Christ’s sake. I can’t pretend what they think doesn’t matter to me. It affects me. Every time they look at me, speak to me, don’t look at me, don’t speak to me, give me a job don’t give me a job let me rent an apartment don’t let me rent an apartment. …

  You could go to Mexico. No better there, though: Indian blood, Spanish blood, mulatto. Maybe they’re even worse. Anyway, it’s your insides you have to heal.

  If they … if Elizabeth and Mary and Alex …

  Forget that.

  Forget that. It’s over.

  It’s over.

  She turned on her side and closed her eyes and fell into a turbulent sleep.

  20

  HAVING ALL SLEPT PAST ten, Elizabeth, Alex, and Ronnie were still hanging over their coffee cups at ten-thirty later that morning when Mary came trailing in in a white satin gown and robe and white satin mules. Alex looked up startled.

  “No breakfast in bed this morning?”

  “Just decided to come down and have my second cup of coffee with you,” Mary said airily. She noticed Elizabeth eyeing her robe. “Father’s dead. I can come down in my robe now if I want to.”

  Ronnie got up and went into the kitchen, returning with a clean cup and saucer, which she set before Mary.

  “Thanks, Ronnie, that’s kind of you.”

  Alex poured coffee from the carafe and offered cream, which Mary rejected. Alex and Ronnie glanced at her in surprise.

  “I’m starting a diet.”

  Elizabeth folded the newspaper she’d been reading, removed her glasses, sat back and lighted a cigarette.